Actress Connie Stevens wants to make people laugh — because they need it

Onstage

“Miracle on South Division Street” runs through June 15 at the New Theatre Restaurant, 9229 Foster, Overland Park. For more information, call 913-649-7469 or go to NewTheatre.org.

Saved by Boonville

Despite spending nearly her whole adult life in show business, Connie Stevens didn’t direct a film until she was in her 70s. And the story was based on time she spent as a child in Boonville, Mo.

Stevens directed, produced and co-wrote 2012’s “Saving Grace B. Jones,” starring Rylie Fansler (above left), Evie Thompson (above right), Penelope Ann Miller, Michael Biehn and Tatum O’Neal. The fictionalized story is set during the catastrophic flood of 1951 and involves mental illness and small-town values. Stevens shot the film in Boonville, Mo., where she spent one summer as a kid.

“I was 10 years old and had seen a brutal murder in Brooklyn, and my dad was very worried because I stopped talking,” she said. “I got a little catatonic and I wouldn’t go out.”

So her father sent her to live with friends on a farm in Missouri for a summer, where the semi-rural environment had a healing effect.

“It’s very poignant and a very large part of my memory as a child,” she said.

“Saving Grace B. Jones” is scheduled to be released on video on May 27.

This story was originally published April 20, 2014 at 6:37 PM with the headline "Actress Connie Stevens wants to make people laugh — because they need it."